Intruder to south Tel Aviv apartment reportedly attempts to rape young girl, stabs mom with knife, but gets beaten to a pulp by father

An intruder who broke into a southern Tel Aviv apartment Wednesday morning found more than he bargained for and ended up in the hospital in serious condition.

According to the police, the intruder, an Eritrean migrant, entered the apartment in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood through an unlocked window and, after gathering up some items, attempted to sexually assault the family’s daughter, an eight-year-old girl. The mother, who woke up and attempted to intervene, was stabbed by the intruder, who left her with moderate wounds.

It was at this point that the father, a martial arts expert, attacked the stranger. The father beat the would-be rapist into unconsciousness, tied him up with a telephone cable, and then called the police.

The intruder suffered serious wounds from the assault and when police arrived, he was taken to Ichilov Hospital where he remained unconscious and on a respirator. The mother was treated at Wolfson Hospital for her injuries.

“He entered the girl’s room and leaned over one of the beds,” the police said. The girl woke up and yelled, which attracted the mother, who, despite her wounds, was able to drag the intruder from the room. “The father woke up, saw the fight, attacked and neutralized him and tied him up.”

A group of neighbors gathered outside the apartment later in the morning, calling for police to deal with the ongoing problem of crimes by migrants in the city’s southern neighborhoods.

“It’s scary what’s happening here,” one resident told Ynet News. “It will end with a murder, and the police have to wake up.”

MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) said Wednesday that “the life of southern Tel Aviv residents has for some time been full of anarchy” because of the concentration of African migrants in the area. “Attempts to delay solutions to the problem through legal means only exacerbates the problem and leads to serious events, like what happened tonight.”

“The State of Israel must not delay in finding a solution to the infiltrators problem, either by deporting them to a third country or their country of origin,” Shaked added. “There is no other way.”

There are roughly 60,000 African migrants in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. The migrants are concentrated in the poor neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv, leading to increased confrontations with residents.

In recent months, the flow of migrants has petered out due to the construction of a new fence on the Israeli-Egyptian border.